eating in Philly

One of the things about living in Philly that makes me happiest is that there is so much good and affordable (i.e., $7-10 per person) food. Most of it is Asian, though there is some Mexican food too.

When I first started looking for places to eat in Philly, I tried signing up for Zagat.com, because when I lived in Berkeley I found that the Zagat guide was a pretty complete list of all the restaurants in the area, and that the ratings were accurate. This is not the case for Philly's Zagat.com, which was totally useless: both incomplete and inaccurate.

The next thing I tried was Googling for free restaurant reviews. This was much more successful.

I stumbled on a grad student blog titled Messy and Picky, which gave reviews for places that were both in my price range and sensibly written. Kolia and I have eaten at several of the restaurants they reviewed (Miran, Tampopo, Taqueria la Veracruzana). Miran and Tampopo are actually just a block away from my apartment, so I have been eating a lot of kalbi.

I also went looking for reviewers who were based more in the U Penn area and found one which not only reviewed restaurants, but also food trucks; as well as one reviewer who seems to have eaten everywhere in Philly. A few of the restaurants these sites suggested (Nan, Han-Wool, White Dog Cafe) were good as well. Nan has a very klutzy waiter who provides extra entertainment in a restaurant setting that is trying to be moderately high-class (white table linens, folded cloth napkins). The first time we went there the kid yelled across the length of the restaurant that we should just sit somewhere. The second time he was unsuccessful removing our dishes at the end of the meal and dropped silverware like breadcrumbs all the way back to the kitchen.

Anyway, none of the restaurant reviews I found gave much guidance when it came to a couple of things I was craving: Vietnamese food (specifically pork chops) and Chinese food (especially dim sum). Fortunately while looking for parking we ran into a Vietnamese shopping center that had several Vietnamese cafes serving pho and pork chops, as well as Vietnamese iced coffee, which solved that problem.

A few weeks later we ended up signing up with friends for an extremely silly tour of Philly's Chinatown--which I wouldn't actually recommend--but I asked the tour guide for restaurant recommendations, which in the end was probably worth more than the tour itself. Ocean Harbor and the Golden Phoenix both have really good food at decent prices (unlike the previous restaurants we tried based on the Zagat reviews). Ocean Harbor's dumplings were really huge, and they had some special ones (shrimp and scallop, with a touch of cilantro) that were excellent.

I am still working on identifying the best places in Chinatown for bubble tea. I have tested four places so far; unfortunately most of them use those awful powdered mixes and/or Lipton tea--nothing as good as the Ten-Ren shop in Berkeley.

mike & lily's wedding

Mike and Lily are old friends of mine from Stanford; their wedding was in April. Here are a few thumbnails stolen from the photographer's website (where I could have, but didn't, order 3x5 copies of the pictures for $12 each...):















After everything being fuzzy all day and not being able to rub my eyes because of all the silly mascara, it was such a relief to at least be able to put my glasses back on at the reception...this may have been my fourth time round as a bridesmaid, but I really will never get used to having all that makeup on.

Another silly quiz

I've started watching anime again, and the latest series is about an ex-samurai named Rurouni Kenshin...




Which Rurouni Kenshin Character Are You?

Test Created By oronoda

philadelphia ICA

Spent Sunday afternoon at Philadelphia's Institute of Contemporary Art. Most of the pieces in the exhibitions didn't do much for me, but there was one exhibition that was stunning.

Candida Höfer is a German photographer who focuses on public interior spaces when devoid of people. It's unfortunately pretty much impossible to get a sense of the work from digital pics because the prints are large, approx. 60x60(cm)--it's like TV vs. the movie theater, half the impact is made by the size.

Anyway, though all the prints were beautiful I especially liked her series of photographs of libraries (as you might have guessed). As it turns out there was recently a new book made of her library prints, which I will be trying to refrain from purchasing...

linguine with clams

Spent most of yesterday morning trying to get caught up on email. I have taken to occasionally ignoring my email for many hours in a row instead of checking mail compulsively 24/7. It is wonderful having an email-free day, until I finally get around to it in the evening. When the screenful of unread emails unrolls before my eyes, my stomach sinks. (Then I usually decide that it is more important to go to sleep, which leaves me catching up on email all morning...)

Had a very nice dinner last night with Jeff and Kolia at "Leonardo's II" on Route 1 (Lawrenceville?)--a restaurant with a very unpromising name that is actually quite good. I had a big plate of linguine with clams.

It can be tricky ordering pasta with clams around here. Unlike ordering pasta with clams in Italy, which uniformly means a plate of pasta with white wine sauce and clams in the shell, in New Jersey I have found that sometimes you end up with canned clams and tomato sauce.

Now canned clams belong in two types of dishes: clam chowder and deep-fried-clam baskets or sandwiches. Canned clams do not belong on good pasta. They are the seafood equivalent of SPAM.

However, Leonardo's II has come up with a good compromise. They serve good pasta with clams in the shell with white wine sauce, but dump an extra few spoonfuls of canned clams over the top of it all. This I can deal with. More seafood is always welcome, as long as they give me the decent clams to start with.

So after dinner as the clouds gathered overhead, the three of us started our Reunions trek at the Old Guard tent (classes that graduated in the 40's). They had a wonderful jazz band playing, but there were only a few couples dancing because most of the alumni of that era are not really able to dance anymore. So I danced with Jeff and Kolia barefoot (I forgot to bring my dance shoes), and some of the alumni even came up and told us how nice it was to see us on the dance floor. It makes it even more fun to dance when you know people on the sidelines are enjoying your dancing too.

As that party wound down we decided to trek around to the other reunion years' tents, and it was just about then that it stared to rain in earnest. We stopped by six other tents, along with many other determined reuniongoers, but eventually the rain took its toll. The footbeds of my Birkenstocks were like wet sponges. By the time we got back to our car we had walked through so many ankle-deep puddles it wasn't worth trying to avoid them anymore.

This morning it is still raining. Here's hoping it will stop soon.

princeton reunions

I'm back on campus today just in time for the annual craziness that is called Reunions at Princeton. Multiple generations of orange-and-black-clad alumni stream in from all over to sit in on pseudo-classes during the day, drink themselves silly at Reunions parties in the evening, and top it all off by sleeping in creaky twin beds in humid dorm rooms.

I'm not really here for Reunions themselves--I was invited to have lunch with the Graduate School Leadership Council and talk about graduate housing issues--but as long as I'm here, I might as well go to the parties with everyone else and people-watch...